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I count 35 aversions and 82 straight examples on a cursory glance (didn't read the entire page closely, just did a CTRL+F for "averted" and "aversion" and skimmed so I may have missed some).

So not quite "more" aversions than straight examples, but still so many aversions that I also question whether it's actually a trope.

There are a few pages like this that are meant to be Tropes in Aggregate (or "audience reactions in aggregate" for non-tropes), but list so many exceptions that it makes you wonder whether there's actually a meaningful pattern. I brought up a similar point in an ATT thread about Girl-Show Ghetto.

By the way, this problem affects most of the tropes which use the All X Are Y name template. All Germans Are Nazis is a good bad example. It has been cleaned up repeatedly, but "averted" examples rack up again every time.

I feel like there's a deeper problem here. For Tropes in Aggregate where the pattern is only apparent when examining a large number of works, what counts as a "good" example entry? Should these pages have example sections at all?

Thing is, those tropes only exist because of the wide amount of examples. On one hand, examples allow us to look and say "yeah, this is a thing". On the other hand, what lone example can properly convey something like this?

Looking at the examples on-page, they seem like "the work only says that men are capable of abuse", which seem okay to me.

The idea that there are tropes that only appear once you look at the bigger picture is a nonsensical concept, in my opinion. Tropes are always defined by being patterns in works of fiction. Without a pattern, it is Too Rare to Trope. And that's before we get into the speculative BS found on pages like Manga.My First Girlfriend Is A Gal:

Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male: When Ranko's Secret Test of Character on Junichi fails, she decides to directly force herself on him to break off his relationship with Yukana, all because she was in love with her and didn't like seeing her hurt. This somehow makes Ranko look sympathetic but if she were a guy she would easily be seen as scum.

Note that the language, in both of these examples, focuses on what would happen if the gender roles were reversed, rather than how the work expresses the double standard. This is far from an isolated problem. I also noticed that U.S. Acres is also listed as an example of Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male, even though (a) the Smurfette Principle is in effect for the main characters and the female character in question is the most aggressive of the characters, so it's a matter of her not being able to be affected as such, (b) it's inheritly slapstick, so nothing can be taken seriously, and (c) male-on-female abuse is never addressed within the freaking example.

As someone who isn't very familiar with this trope, it seems kind of complicated. If only straight examples were allowed, there would be a lot of potential for Trope Decay and Square Peg, Round Trope since male abusers are far more plentiful in fiction than female ones and just because a work features a male abuser, it doesn't mean the work is necessarily trying to convey a message that women aren't capable of abuse.

Maybe it should be axed altogether, or only allow examples of this concept being discussed within the work (i.e. a character in the work outright says "only men abuse people") otherwise, there would either be too many examples (if merely listing any male abuser who appears in any work), not enough examples (if only aversions or discussed examples are allowed since I don't think a large number of works deny female abusers exist, just that females abusing males is more likely to bePlayed for Laughsin works than males abusing females.)

^^^ Well, that's the problem, innit? Examples of female-on-male abuse being treated seriously as abuse are vanishingly rare, and examples of male-on-female abuse being treated seriously are common, so by definition you're rarely going to see both sides of the Double Standard in evidence within the same work.

The trope isn't just "female-on-male abuse is Played for Laughs," and it's not just "male-on-female abuse is taken seriously." It's "male-on-female abuse is far more likely to be depicted at all, and taken seriously when it is, than female-on-male abuse." And that's absolutely a thing, but I don't know how you express it in a standard single-bullet-point example focused on only one work.

I guess the idea is that since enough works do this, that makes it a thing. But, I'm a bit unconvinced. The presence of said aversions show that, no, not every fictional abuser is male, which makes the trope look a lot more like "work has male abuser" than "fiction portrays men as being the only ones capable of abuse".

"Male character is abusive" is not inherently a trope on it's own, and any tropes it would fit into are mostly covered (Abusive Parents, Domestic Abuse, etc).

"Fiction believes only men can be abusive" may be a trope, but it's weakened by the amount of examples that don't follow this pattern.

Now, if the trope was "work claims that only men can be abusive or that women can only be victims"...

I've mentioned before, but there's a lot of creeping "Whatboutism" showing up on many of the gender-related threads. I see a lot of unnecessary references to Men Are the Expendable Gender and its Analysis page, which itself reads like a manifesto from r/incels at time.

...I mean, the tropes are about people not caring about men, so I don't see the issue? It's not like they're on, say, "Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female" and saying "BUT THE MENZ THO". They're bringing up valid reason why this stereotype exists and why female abusers are rarer in media. What's the alternative, making the page entirely about how horrible it is that men are abusive?

Either I'm seriously misunderstanding you, or you seem to think these pro-male arguments shouldn't ever be made.

Then you’re misunderstanding me because no one should ever assume that calling out “Whataboutism” in any way means pro-X arguments shouldn’t be made.

Also...the validity is questionable. Some of the reasonings given in these descriptions are hotly debated and, often, heavily politicized. I’m not against said reasonings being mentioned as possibilities or common perceptions for why certain people use said tropes, but it has a habit of presenting those arguments as fact.

In time, it then gives way to the Wikipedia problem where the information they put on the wiki is then used as a source in other parts of the wiki. Like “as it says in this trope...”.

I'll try to keep this brief. The fundamental problem with tropes like All Abusers Are Male, Men Are the Expendable Gender (hereafter AAAM & MATEG), etc., is that they're often written as if they're both Omnipresent Tropes and cultural attitudes. When written as the latter, there's rarely a problem; said attitudes do exist. However, these tropes are more like Cyclic Tropes than omnipresent ones, because it depends on the era, where one era believes that women are lesser, crazy and spiteful, and the next over-balances by placing them on a pedestal. MATEG, in particular, makes several claims that women are treated as more precious or innocent by default, when whether this is true or not depends on the work and/or culture in specific. AAAM has a similar, but less pronounced problem. I've noticed several times that this causes people to assume that ANY example of a trope or work (or collection of them) that negatively impacts a man or men is an example of these tropes, when it isn't.

For a recent example, there was this edit in Women Are Wiser (hereafter WAW) which used MATEG as the baseline reason why men don't fight women in fiction, using the Analysis page of MATEG as a source. I made an edit that clarified that specifically in works where both these tropes are true, it's a valid reason. However, there are many, MANY other reasons unrelated to MATEG why a work would not have men and women fight each other, such as the presumption that a woman by default is an incompetent fighter and thus unworthy. It has nothing to do with her being wiser or precious—again, SOME works may also make that argument, but it's not inherent.

There have been other example of this, but as I said, it's been subtle and they aren't fresh in my mind. But like I said, I've just noticed this creeping "Whataboutism" within any trope that disadvantages men which tries to shoehorn an explanation that the reasoning is because men are expendable or women are precious, or both. When, like I said, whether or not a work or person believes this is more specific.

I guess I can see what you're saying? Although I think it was proven that female characters tend to start with automatic audience sympathy, making them less expendable by default, but I suppose it's possible this trend is based on culture such, not just something ingrained in our brains.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that MATEG is one reason why AAAM exists, but it isn't the only reason? (Like, since women are more innocent and special ACCORDING TO MATEG, the perception is that they can't be abusive, or if they are the man deserves it, that sort of thing, but there are definitely other reasons).

"Although I think it was proven that female characters tend to start with automatic audience sympathy, making them less expendable by default"

Personally, I'd like to see this "proof".

The main problem with the perception is that it tends to imply that the woman in question is feminine, attractive and faultless, or all three. If so, that's not a woman starting out with sympathy "by default" so much as it is an archetype designed from the ground up to elicit sympathy. MATEG itself seems to argue that you can make a woman "lose" her sympathy by removing all of those traits and that man can "gain" it with similar tropes, but if that's the case then it's rigged from the start specifically because it's not about gender but other traits which are assigned to those genders.

Well, even if objective proof isn't existent (the source popping up seems to be our own Analysis for MATEG), I've certainly heard it mentioned enough for it to become, at the very least, a common belief about female and male characters that would undoubtedly affect how they're portrayed. The idea is that, since women start with audience sympathy, they don't have to work as hard in the story to be liked by the audience, while men have to earn it, thus making male abusers more prevalent in fiction, as a female abuser may have to be very abusive to lose that sympathy, while the men didn't have any anyway. I guess.

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